Maybe a good lost ring story

[ziphius]

A couple of months ago, I was MDing the beach near the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) and a guy walks up to me and says his friend who works at SIO lost a tungsten wedding band just south of the pier. He asks me if I or any of my MDing coterie have found such a ring. No, I say, but I'll be sure to spread the word. Of course, I forget the name of the guy who lost the ring. My buddy Dave (Fumunda on the kinzlicoils forum) tells me a few weeks later that a friend of his just told him about a lost tungsten wedding band near the SIO pier. Yeah, I know, I ran into someone who told me the same thing. Last night, I'm hunting around the pier, move up the beach a little to avoid another MDer with a more expensive detector and longer scoop [it's getting crowded out here], and then come back down to the water's edge. I get a really nice signal at 6 inches and out of comes this ring. No markings, too light for platinum, I'm thinking tungsten. Any opinions? If I can confirm that it is tungsten, I will begin my search for the owner on Monday morning. Should be easy to find too, as I work right up the hill from SIO and know a few people down there. - Jim

 

[Mike (Virginia Beach)]

Well, I have found several titanium bands (actually marked "Titanium") almost exactly like that and also a few marked "T" and "Ti". Which I assume that "Ti" is titanium and perhaps "T" is either tungsten or titanium. But they were all MARKED. I also have a number of bands that are not marked...some like that and some very ornate. Those are almost always stainless steel. I have seen SOME marked "SS" but most are not marked. If yours truly has NO marking I would suspect it is stainless steel. If it's not too hard to find the owner, find him and see if that's it. But I wouldn't go through any great lengths, as it wouldn't be worth much as SS. If it's titanium it's worth a little more. Here' s a couple of examples of such rings:

http://www.titaniumkay.com/Titanium-7mm-Flat-Band-Ring-P102232.html

http://www.iweddingband.com/detail.asp?product_id=2125&?utm_source=shopzilla&utm_medium=cpc

 

[ziphius]

Mike,

Thanks for the input. With some help, I managed to track down a craigslist message that describes the ring I found in the same location (within 100 yards) back in September. I'm going to meet the potential owner this week. This is a win-win situation, with my hope that I've got the right ring. It was fun seeing that ring in my scoop when my headlamp first hit it!

Jim

 

[diggindirt]

n/t

 

[PaPa-Joe-Fla.]

n/t

 

[ziphius]

This turned out to have a happy ending! The fellow Bret came by my office today, opened the ring box I had put the band in, and nearly fell over! His expression was worth a million bucks! He immediately called his wife, who I heard shrieking on the other end of the line. Bret mentioned that he had done a few hours of metal detecting in the area with a borrowed detector on two separate weekends, to no avail. No reward, but he was a young kid and I would have felt weird taking money from him anyway. He did agree to my request for a couple of photographs overlooking the Scripps Pier where the ring was lost. A good story during a pretty tough week for most San Diego residents! Hope everyone out there is safe and healthy! - Jim